A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg
lex loci (leks LOH-sy, -kee, -ky) noun
The law of the place. From Latin lex (law) + locus (place). Earliest documented use: 1832. Lex loci says that the law of that country or jurisdiction applies where the act was done.
hereditament (her-i-DIT-uh-ment) noun
Inheritable property. From Latin hereditare (to inherit), from heres (heir). Earliest documented use: 1461. Hereditament is of two kinds: corporeal and incorporeal. If your grandfather willed you his collection of Superman comics, that would be corporeal hereditament. If he awarded you only the right to read those comics from time to time, it'd be incorporeal hereditament.
attorn (uh-TUHRN) verb. tr. To turn over rent, goods, etc. to another. verb. intr. To agree to be a tenant of a new landlord of the same property. From Old French atorner (to assign to), from a- (to) + torner (to turn). An attorney is the person one turns to to represent oneself. Earliest documented use: 1458
suborn (suh-BORN) verb. tr. To induce another to perform an unlawful act or give false testimony. From Latin subornare, from sub- (secretly) + ornare (to equip). Other words that derive from ornare are adorn and ornate. Earliest documented use: 1534.
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suborn This word is also used in respect to giving
one's interest in an item to another. For
example, I own property which I'm selling and give my interest in that property
to a mortgage company. Why? To facilitate the purchaser in obtaining a
mortgage. My mother once owned over 400
acres which was being converted to a golf course. We had a buyer of substance but they needed an
additional mortgage to finish the project. She was asked to suborn her interest in the
property to a mortgage company. All went
well by doing so.
The U.S. was the third least taxed country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) in 2010, the most recent year for which OECD has complete
data. Of all the OECD countries, which
are essentially the countries the U.S. trades with and competes with, only
Chile and Mexico collect less taxes as a percentage of their overall economy
(as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP). In 2010, the total (federal, state and local)
tax revenue collected in the U.S. was equal to 24.8 percent of the U.S.’s GDP. The total taxes collected by other OECD
countries that year was equal to 33.4 percent of combined GDP of those
countries. See list of OECD countries
and graphs at: http://ctj.org/pdf/oecd2013.pdf
The golden ratio
The Phoenicians
The recorded history shows a
group of coastal cities and heavily forested mountains inhabited by a Semitic
people, the Canaanites, around 4000 BC. These early inhabitants referred to themselves
according to their city of origin, and called their nation Canaan. They lived in the narrow East-Mediterranean
coast and the parallel strip mountains of Lebanon. Around 2800 BC Canaanites traded cedar timber,
olive oil and wine from Byblos for metals and ivory from Egypt. The Canaanites who inhabited that area were
called Phoenicians by the Greeks (from the Greek word phoinos, meaning ‘red’)
in a reference to the unique purple dye the Phoenicians produced from murex
seashells. The Phoenicians mastered the
art of navigation and dominated the Mediterranean Sea trade for around 500
years. They excelled in producing
textiles, carving ivory, working with metal and glass. The Phoenicians built several local cities
East Mediterranean among which: Byblos,
Tyre, Sidon, Berytus (Beirut), Tripoli, Arvad Island-City, Baalbek and
Caesarea. They established trade routes
to Europe and Western Asia. Phoenician
ships circumnavigated Africa a thousand years before those of the Portuguese. They founded colonies wherever they went in
North and South Mediterranean; in Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, Malta, Sicily,
Sardinia, Marseilles, Cadiz, and Carthage around the first Millennium B.C. Around 1600 B.C. the Phoenicians invented 22
‘magic signs’ called the alphabet, and passed them onto the world. The Phoenicians gave the alphabet to the
Greeks who adopted it; the evolution of the Phoenician Alphabet led to the
Latin letters of present-day. See images and read
Phoenician legends at: http://www.lgic.org/en/phoenicians.php
Posted by Ron Charles on
March 29, 2013 Bibliophiles, take note:
There’s a spectacular new page on your
tour of America’s great book sites: The reopened public
library in downtown St. Louis.
The library closed almost three years ago for a $70-million renovation. The results of that work are now open to the
public, and the 190,000-square-foot building is the most gorgeous — and usable
— library I have ever seen. The 1912
Beaux Arts building, which takes a full city block, was originally designed by
Cass Gilbert, who also designed the U.S. Supreme Court. Andrew Carnegie provided the seed money — part
of his campaign to build 1,600 libraries in America — and taxpayers provided the
rest. Visitors enter through a marble Grand Foyer and move into the Great
Hall with its alabaster and marble lamps and its hand-sculpted ceiling. Walking through the other rooms, one discovers
a perfect blend of reverence and whimsy, from the super-quiet genealogy center
to the Children’s Library (kids only, please) guarded by three giant Jelly Baby
sculptures by Mauro Perucchetti. Breathtaking
stained glass windows by Gorham have been gleamingly restored, while a new
stainless steel and glass atrium offers space for book clubs, computers and a
cafe. A basement originally used for the
furnace and coal storage has been transformed into a 244-seat auditorium for
author events and concerts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/03/29/remodeled-st-louis-central-library-is-a-marvel/
The ancient
Phoenician boatbuilding skills are not a lost art . . . in fact they are
still in use today. Sanford Holst
documented this remarkable experience in Lebanon: "When I was in Tyre in 2004, the local
boatmaster was just finishing one-and-a-half years of work constructing a boat
by hand using the old Phoenician methods. It was an absolutely beautiful vessel, and he
took the time to tell me about many of the details that went into it. The maiden voyage was to be two days later. On the second day, I was having lunch at the
harbor in Byblos -- about 70 miles (115 km) north of Tyre--and quite incredibly
the Phoenician boat sailed directly into the harbor and docked right in front
of my table! See pictures at: http://www.phoenician.org/ancient_ships.htm
Terry, cast as Toto in "The Wizard
of Oz", was owned by an elderly couple in Pasadena. As a pup Terry was so shy she spent most of
her days hiding under the bed refusing to come out. The couple was not at all pleased with Terry,
so they took her to Carl Spitz who trained dogs in Hollywood. Spitz trained Terry and helped her overcome
her shyness; however the couple never paid Spitz for his efforts and never came
back to claim Terry. One day while MGM
director Clarence Brown was visiting Spitz's kennel, and when he laid eyes on
Terry. Brown remarked to Spitz, that Terry would be perfect for the role as
Toto in "The Wizard of Oz".
Spitz disagreed and felt that Terry was just too shy to ever make it in
the pictures. Brown would not take no
for an answer and agreed that he personally would handle Terry during the
filming of the movie. MGM was willing to
pay Spitz $300.00 per week for Terry's role as Toto. (Judy Garland got paid $500.00/weekly) but
Spitz settled for $125.00/wk since he believed that Terry wouldn't last a week
on the job. See picture of Terry at: http://www.yellowbrickrdkennels.com/totos-story
NOTE that Terry was a
Cairn terrier. Thanks, Greg.
Over 200 years ago, on the ancient Isle of Skye and in the Scottish Highlands, the
ancestors of today’s Cairn Terrier earned their keep routing vermin from the
rock piles (called cairns) commonly found on Scottish farmland. These early terriers were highly prized and
bred for their working ability, not appearance. Such characteristics as courage, tenacity and
intelligence, housed in a sturdy body clad in a weather-proof coat, armed with
big teeth in strong jaws, were sought generation after generation. Gradually the breeds known as the Scottish
Terrier and the West Highland White evolved and were named.
May 1 is the 121st day of the year (122nd in leap years)
in the Gregorian calendar. There are 244 days remaining until the end of
the year. Events and observances:
1707 – The Act
of Union joins the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.1751 – The first cricket match is played in America.
1753 – Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus, and the formal start date of plant taxonomy adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.
1982 – The 1982 World's Fair opens in Knoxville, Tennessee.
1989 – Disney-MGM Studios opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
International Workers' Day or Labour Day (International), and its related observances:
EuroMayDay (Western Europe)
Law Day, U.S.A., formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
Loyalty Day, formerly intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labour Day. (United States)
See much more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1
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